Several Methods of Heightening Car Chassis and Their Advantages and Disadvantages

There must be many car owners who want to make their cars have better passing performance, easily driving through potholes or crushing the road. But the car you buy has a settled height when it leaves the factory. If you want to heighten the car body, what should you do? We have provided several methods for you as follows.

The car suspension lift kit is commonly known to all. Here, first of all, you should understand the suspension structure of the car, including tires (wheel hubs), springs and shock absorbers (pillars). These three components determine the height of the car chassis. Therefore, it is very common to change the height of these components to increase the height of the car owner. 

Springs, shock absorbers, and hubs can affect the height of the chassis.

1. Change a bigger tire (wheel hub)

The car owner who chooses to increase the tires must know well about the car. Even if it increases a few centimeters, various parameters will accordingly be calculated, including the wheel diameter (circumference) and the number of revolutions. At the same time, it is necessary to increase the corresponding steel pad to enlarge the space between the tire and the car, and do correction by computer to adjust the balance of the whole car, and other small spare parts such as car wheel nuts are also needed. Without professional car knowledge, such a modification cannot be achieved.

Bigger tires will bring better stability and better performance on mud and sand with the little impact of high-speed driving and the enhanced trafficability. Of course, the disadvantage is that the fuel consumption increases, which also increases the load on the engine and braking system.

2. Heighten the spring

By only replacing the spring seems to be the most economical way to increase height. But this method is not recommended because in the suspension system of a car, the height of the spring determines the height of the vehicle. But if you only change the height of the spring without changing the parameters of the shock absorber accordingly, you will find that the body will have a stronger sense of undulation when encountering a road with relatively large potholes.

3. The driving effect of springs with no shock absorber

After the spring is lengthened, the compression and stretching stroke is lengthened. If the lever of the shock absorber and the damping setting is not changed, then the shock absorber will be pulled to its limit every time the spring is stretched. Over time, it will cause damage to the shock absorber. Therefore, after you choose to heighten the spring, it is still recommended to replace the shock absorber, because the original shock absorber can no longer adapt to the strength of the spring after the increase in performance and length.

4. Improve the driving comfort after heightening by modifying the shock absorber

Therefore, more and more people choose to heighten or lower the body by modifying the height of the shock absorber. According to the type of shock absorber, car suspension lift kit can also be divided into the following three methods, custom hydraulic shock absorber, replacement of height adjustable damper and modification of pneumatic suspension.

(1) Hydraulic shock absorption

The most common one is the hydraulic shock absorber which is equipped with the original car, but this kind of shock absorber cannot adjust the height and need to be customized.

• Comparison of the original shock absorption and the modified one

It is directly based on the original shock absorption parameters to change the height of the tray or that of the tie rod. You can keep the original spring or replace the heightened spring, which depends on the model. Moreover, the damping parameters can be adjusted according to your requirements.

(2) Height adjustable damper

The height adjustable damper is derived from the racing technology. It can adjust the height of the body by itself and the damping value as the first choice for people who obsess with cars. But if it's a family car, most car fans will have fun with this special design when modifying the height-adjustable shock absorber at first, but then often no longer have the patience to make detailed adjustments. After all, it is troublesome to adjust the load and road clearance of each corner of the car by the number of passengers, the seating positions, or the road conditions on the driving route. In this way, except the adjustable height, the performance of height adjustable damper is not necessarily better than none. From the practical point of view, if you only change the height of the body, simply changing to a set of fixed-height shock absorbers may be easier.

• The number of the height adjustable damper must be consistent.

On the other hand, compared to the hydraulic shock absorber, the height adjustable damper uses a smaller spring, and its rebound stroke and force value are not as good as the original car spring. So, it feels that the car will be less comfortable. What's more, it is more commonly used to lower the body and improve the handling of the car. At the same time, it should constantly debugged to obtain the maximum comfort.

(3) The modified pneumatic suspension

Pneumatic suspension uses air pressure to adjust the height and comfort of the suspension. Compared with traditional steel spring suspension, it has many advantages. The most important thing is the elastic coefficient of the spring, which is, the softness and hardness of the spring can be automatically adjusted as needed. For example, the suspension can be hardened when driving at a high speed to improve the stability of the vehicle body while driving at a low speed for a long time, the control unit will consider that it is passing a bumpy road and it will adjust the suspension to a soft level in order to improve comfort.

The pneumatic suspension system is the best in comfort and is generally applied to mid-to-high-end models. Of course, the cost of modification is also the most expensive, which can be tens of thousands of yuan.

No matter how do you plan to heighten your car, you can always find helping kit for many major brand of cars on our website, such as Chevy leveling lift kits, Dodge leveling lift kits and Isuzu leveling lift kits.

There are many ways to heighten the car. You can choose the most suitable modification method according to your car's situation. But we must pay attention to proper modification, so that the safety of the car must not be affected. We wish you all the satisfaction of the modified car.